Is Israel arming in Saudi Arabia?

Is Israel arming in Saudi Arabia?

Reports claim IAF helicopters were preparing an attack on Iran

air force 311.
(photo credit:AP [illustrative])

Israel Air Force aircraft dropped off large quantities of military gear at a
Saudi Arabian military base a week ago, in preparation for a potential attack on
Iran, a number of Iranian and Israeli news outlets have reported.

The
unconfirmed report, first published by the semi-official Iranian news agency
Fars and the Islam Times Web site, claimed that on June 18 and 19, Israeli
helicopters unloaded military equipment and built a base just over 8 km. outside
the northwestern city of Tabuk, the closest Saudi city to Israel, located just
south of Jordan. All civilian flights into and out of the city were said to have
been canceled during the Israeli drop-off, and passengers were reportedly
compensated by the Saudi authorities and accommodated in nearby
hotels.

The claim follows a report two weeks ago in the London Times
Magazine that Saudi Arabia had given Israel permission to fly through a
narrow
corridor of airspace in northern Saudi Arabia so as to shorten the
flight time
required for Israeli jets to reach Iran. The Times said that Saudi
Arabia had
adjusted its missile defense systems to ensure that Israeli jets are not
shot
down while passing through Saudi airspace on the way to an attack on
Iran’s
nuclear facilities.

Citing an anonymous American defense official, the
report claimed that Mossad director Meir Dagan had been in contact with
Saudi
officials and briefed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the
plans.

Saudi Arabia has adamantly denied it will allow Israel to use its
airspace to attack Iran.

Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf told the
London-based Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat that it would be “illogical to
allow the
Israeli occupying force, with whom Saudi Arabia has no relations
whatsoever, to
use its land and airspace.”

Earlier last week, Arab media outlets
reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had canceled a
series
of military cooperation agreements with Israel after Israel’s assault on
a
flotilla of Gazabound ships, which ended in the death of nine Turkish
activists.
The military agreements would have allowed Israeli jets to fly through
Turkish
airspace to Georgia and on to Iran.

Also last week, Egyptian sources told
London-based Al- Quds Al-Arabi that an American fleet consisting of 11
frigates
and an aircraft carrier, believed to be the nuclearpowered aircraft
carrier USS
Harry S. Truman, passed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to
the Red
Sea. Eyewitnesses told the paper that an Israeli frigate was among the
passing
ships and that Egyptian authorities had suspended all commercial boat
traffic in
the canal for several hours to enable the fleet to pass. Thousands of
Egyptian
soldiers and two helicopters were reportedly deployed to the area during
the
passage.

“Obviously there is much fear in the Arab world, and a clear
understanding in Saudi Arabia as well as in Israel that a nuclear Iran
is a
great threat,” said Dr. Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin- Sadat
Center for
Strategic Studies in Ramat Gan.

“This brings us together on a strategic
level in that we have common interests.

Since the Arab world and Saudi
Arabia understand that President Obama is a weak person, maybe they
decided to
facilitate this happening,” Inbar said.

“That said, I don’t think the
Saudis want to burden themselves with this type of cooperation with
Israel,” he
said.

“They are afraid of Iran and if the Israeli action is not
successful they would be vulnerable to Iranian retaliation.”

“It’s
interesting that the news first came from Iran,” Inbar added. “Maybe
it’s a
warning [from Iran] to Saudi that we know what you are doing and we are
not
happy about it. It’s also possible that Saudi Arabia let the news out as
a
warning to America that if you don’t do something, we will.”

Dr. Eldad
Pardo, an expert on Iran at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem’s Harry
S. Truman
Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, argued that there was
growing
support in the Arab world for an Israeli attack on Iran.

“If there is
military collaboration between the Israelis and countries that are
officially in
conflict with Israel, both sides would be sure to keep it secret,” Pardo
said.
“However, as the Iranian nuclear project becomes more dangerous and the
regime
becomes less tolerant, more and more people across the Middle East are
ready to
collaborate their efforts to block this project.

“That makes Israel just
one player in a much larger military, economic and political effort,” he
continued. “There are clearly an intensifying set of signals towards
Iran that
it’s not just Israel that means business. We saw it in the sanctions,
which the
United Arab Emirates just joined, in the quick reaction to the Turkish
offer to
act as a gobetween to resolve the nuclear dispute, in the Russian
decision not
to sell the S-300 missiles to Iran and the fact that Arab countries have
not
come out against reports of a new Israeli satellite and new Israeli
military
equipment.”

While many regional military and geopolitical analysts
believe the reports of secret Israeli-Saudi military cooperation, others
view
such claims with intense skepticism.

“Everything is a bluff,” said Dr.
Guy Bechor, head of the Middle East program at Herzliya’s Lauder School
of
Government, Diplomacy and Strategy.

“What war with Iran? Do you believe
every little report you read? It’s all a bluff.”

“These reports are just
pure fantasy and have no foundation,” said Dr. Mustafa Alani, director
of
security and defense studies at the Dubaibased Gulf Research Center.

“The
Saudis will never be part of a military action against Iran, never mind
an
Israeli attack on Iran.

“You have to remember that the Saudis made lots
of protects when Israel used their airspace to attack the Iraqi
reactor,” Alani
said. “Since then the Saudis have enhanced their capabilities to defend
their
airspace.

“Furthermore, the Saudis are not needed and there would be no
technical military reason for such cooperation,” he claimed. “The
Americans can
attack Iran without embarrassing all these Gulf states, not just Saudi
Arabia.”

Shafeeq Ghabra, an expert on Gulf geopolitics, a professor of
political science at Kuwait University and the founding president of the
American University of Kuwait, argued that an attack on Iran was not in
Saudi
interests.

“It would be impossible for the Saudis to allow an Israeli
attack on Iran,” he said. “For Saudi[s] to cooperate with a regime that
is
occupying Jerusalem, laying siege to Gaza and building settlements in
the West
Bank would undermine justice in the way the Saudis see it. It would also
basically be allowing one nuclear power to attack another country that
wants to
be nuclear.

“Saudi Arabia will not stand for a military showdown because
more than anyone else they know that this will bring chaos to the
region,
increase radicalization and terrorist activity,” Ghabra said.

“That is
not in Saudi Arabia’s interest and quite frankly it’s not in Israel’s
interest
either.”

The IDF and the Foreign Ministry both declined to comment on the
reports.